“A mass shooting occurred last night in Chicago’s Riverside suburb at Ulrich Art Corridor, resulting in the deaths of twelve people,” the severe-looking newscaster says.
The scene shifts to fluttering police tape and flashing lights outside the venue, then a presentation showcasing some of Rose’s works that were displayed.
“Elusive visual and performance artist Rose Callahan’s tour for her new exhibition,Transmogrification, ends in a bloody scene. The shooter was found to be Peter Clements, a Riverside native and mechanic who has been described by family members as having become increasingly obsessed with an unknown woman over the last several months.”
A white man flashes on the screen. He isn’t the one who attacked Rose, but his features—brown hair, ice-blue eyes, a plain, oval face—are equally unremarkable, and I can understand how the people who escaped the gallery could have mistaken him for Rose’s attacker. The anchor confirms my suspicion seconds after it occurs to me: “Several attendees who escaped stated that Clements attacked the artist with a knife before opening fire on the remaining guests and ultimately taking his own life.”
They interview a detective. They believe Clements had an accomplice, someone who whisked an injured Rose, who has still not been found, off the scene and locked the doors behind him, trapping potential witnesses inside.
“We believe this attack was premeditated,” the detective declares, “and that the unknown accomplice is likely at large.”
They start the typical mass shooting talking points: thoughts and prayers, a press conference called by the mayor decrying this“enormous tragedy,” arguments about gun control and the availability of semi-automatic weapons, interviews with sobbing family members. A pretty brunette, probably about my age, appears on-screen, tears streaming down her face as she tells the interviewer that her dad had been excited about the show.
“It was his retirement gift to himself,” she says. Her name flashes on the screen, Ryan Fischer, and my vision blurs until I see Harold’s face—his genial smile as he greeted me in the gallery, followed by the gasping horror of his final moments. I hear the gunshots again. They come fast, nary a thought of mercy between them. Indiscriminate. I never really knew Harold, but I can imagine him as a good man who was beloved by his family. And now he’s gone, all because he had seentheirsecret.
Julian cuts off the segment and stands.
“We’ve stayed here long enough,” he says. “We should get going.”
“What’s the point?” I whisper. I’m as good as dead as it is. My best-case scenario is a life on the run from a forever-young pursuer, one in which I grow old far from the people I love, the career that inspires and energizes me.
Julian doesn’t say anything. I can feel him standing, looming over me, searching for something to say.
“We have to get to our next destination before two,” he finally manages. His voice is low, mollifying, like he’s afraid that I’ll startle at its sound. “Someone will be meeting us there.”
I look up to see Julian looking down at me, sorrowful. His hand twitches toward me, then falls back to his side. I’m glad he doesn’t try to comfort me. I’m not sure I could withstand it without screaming.
Twenty-Seven
I’ve often wondered about the first person to find a dinosaur fossil. When they discovered the giant stony jaws, the teeth as long as their arms, how did it change their concept of what could be possible on Earth? How did it feel to be caught in the midst of a paradigm shift, to realize that the world you thought you understood contained secrets beyond your imagination quite literally beneath its surface? It must have been similar to how I feel now: deeply unsettled, disturbed even, but fascinated too. Because if dinosaurs and incubi exist, why can’t dragons, chimeras, minotaurs,magic?
“Can you control minds?” I ask Julian an hour into the day’s drive.
This leg of the journey is less silent and solemn than the first, mostly because Julian has put on Afrobeats. It’s almost amusing to think that an ancient being listens to Rema, but Julian mumbles along to every word.
At my question, he cuts off the volume but doesn’t take his eyes off the road.
“It’s not quite that simple,” he says. I wait for him to explain, and he sighs. “We cultivate devotion. We make people…” He searches for the word. “Suggestible.”
I shudder, thinking of howsuggestiblea person has to become to willingly murder a room full of people at another’s request. It reminds me of cult leaders, capable of convincing droves of people to give their lives in service of them. I say as much, and Julian shrugs one shoulder.
“Honestly? Yes,” he says. “It is like that. And some people are more susceptible than others.”
I remember Melody at the conference after-party. All Julian’d had to do was touch her, and she’d folded to his command.
“What about the weird addiction thing,” I say. “I felt sick every time we were apart. How does that one work? Do you have poison in your skin or something?”
This makes him snort.
“What am I, a frog?” he says. “No poison. Not as far as I know. Besides, the dependence goes both ways. When we have regular contact with someone, time apart affects us too.”
A revelation lands on me like an anvil.
“Is that why you were so sick?” I ask. “The night we first…”
A new kind of image crosses my mind, this time of Julian on his knees, his eyes fixed determinedly on mine as his tongue delved deep into the space between my legs. My thighs clench, and I inhale, shocked by how much the memory still titillates even under these circumstances. Julian goes silent for a moment, and I wonder if he’s thinking of that night too.
“Yes.” He inhales deep, exhales slow. “That’s why I was sick too.”